Kim Possible: Payback
by LJ58
Summary: Jack Hench is having a problem.  Only he can't quite figure out why.


_I do not own any Disney character, and am just using them in a nonprofit tale written for entertainment purposes only._

**Kim Possible: Payback**

**By LJ58**

"Five warehouses. Billions of dollars in stock. And now my headquarters," Jack roared as he glared at the still smoldering pile of rubble. Someone is going to pay for this. Find out who, and sue them. Sue them into oblivion," the tycoon shouted at the phone he clutched so tightly the casing creaked.

"Sir. You might want to look at this," a security guard said as he walked over to hold out a small disk.

"What is that?"

"The only surviving piece of evidence we could find. It was in the security monitor that wasn't completely destroyed by the blast. We may have some evidence of what happened here."

Jack swore. So much for automated security. His robo-defenses had been blown away with the building. And all the illegal tech and weaponry he had stashed in his underground bunkers beneath the Henchco offices.

He took the disk, slid it into his Smart-Cell, and flipped on the video interface. He ran the timer right up to the moment of the explosion, and froze the image he had in one hall exactly two minutes before the devastation. He glared, then let the footage play out in regular time.

"Bring him in," Jack growled while staring at the image of a short, masked Austrian cackling as he planted bombs in the hallway directly overhead Jack's primary armory.

"…Cheat Professor Dementor will he," the mad dwarf cackled on the brief clip. "I am thinking _not_!"

Then the image was gone.

Along with the rest of his business.

"Use any means necessary, but I want that helmeted twit in front of me _yesterday_," Jack told his people in barely contained fury.

**KP**

"Are you insane? You are thinking that I, Professor Dementor, would bother blowing up your tiny, insignificant little house of cards? The answer is _nein_," the man spat even as Jack glared at him from across his desk in his temporary office.

"Well someone that sure looked a lot like you was seen in my offices right before they blew up," Jack spat, and stabbed a button on the recorder that showed Professor Dementor cackling as he planted bombs.

The man's helmeted head cocked, and he said nothing as he watched himself plant those bombs, and then run away shortly before the explosion.

"Now, deny you did that!"

"I cannot," Dementor actually laughed.

"Then you admit…..!"

"I admit nothing, dummkopf! Ja, I planted bombs. And I laughed doing it. But that was two months ago when I bombed that cheating Drakken's lair after he stole my latest invention!"

Jack frowned, leaning back in his chair.

"You are saying….. This footage is from…..?"

"A month ago. Although I did not know I was being videotaped. That coat does not make me look fat, does it? It was a new style I just started trying out," he commented blandly as he tugged at the stiff lapel.

Jack ran a hand over his face.

"So, if you didn't do it, but someone else…."

"Someone who is obviously trying to frame me," the dwarf sneered, "Who is ironically _being_ _innocent_ this time!"

"Say I believe you. Then I still have someone out there that is trying to ruin me."

"Welcome to my world," Dementor smirked. "I am beset with imitators and envious copycats all trying to steal my work. Do they give me credit when they do? _They do not_! Nein, half my time is spent defending myself against my own peers now. What happened to the villain's code of honor, I ask you?"

"Ah, there isn't actually a real code…."

"Nonsense. Senor Senior gave me a copy just last year. I just cannot quite recall where I put it."

Jack rolled his eyes.

"So…. Who is usually behind the most attacks on your lairs," Jack asked knowingly.

"Who do you think? That tiny-handed, babbling simpleton who is not, and never has been, a _true_ genius! Dr. Drakken, that infernal, ranting imbecile!"

"Drakken," he frowned. "I did turn down his latest request for more credit, and I also ordered him to repay me for that last death ray he sent back…..in pieces."

"Why do you even still work with him," Dr. Dementor complained. "He is so obviously a poser. He even once helped _save_ the world."

"Hmmmmmm," the criminal tycoon murmured. "You may be onto something there," he said, and buzzed his secretary from his new temporary office set up in a time-share lair by necessity. "Get me the best assault team we have, Susan," he told her. "I want them to pick up someone for me."

He listened, then went utterly pale and still.

"What," he rasped in horror. "When? How much did we lose this time?"

Jack cringed as he mentally calculated the losses he was going to be eating for the foreseeable future. Even if he got back into full production tomorrow, his secret munitions plant would take months just to set back up in another location. Meanwhile, he had to consider out-of-pocket expenses for rebuilding, and setting up a new infrastructure to deliver shipments. Once they actually began moving again.

That was on top of a lot of projected refunds considering how many might have gone up with his plant.

"Someone seriously doesn't like you," Dr. Dementor remarked laughing again. "But, as my dear granny always said," he drawled as he rose to his feet, and headed for the door. "_Better you than me_."

"Bastard," Jack hissed, and glared at the intercom. "Get that team. Tell them I want Drakken here, now!"

**KP**

"Hear you've been having some problems," a green-skinned bitch with more attitude than not drawled as she walked into his office dragging a merc in body armor. "Oh, this yours?"

"Did you have to…..? Of course you did," he rolled his eyes as Shego just smirked as she dropped the obviously unconscious man.

Cue the blue-skinned moron himself who walked in next. "Honestly, Shego. Must you make a mess everywhere we go? It's no wonder we don't get invited to nicer places…."

"Zip it, Doc. Jack's delivery boys messed up _my_ room," she drawled, looking grim as she walked into the office, and leaned over his desk to glare at him. "I'd like to know why."

"You…..? Listen, I didn't even want you. I wanted him," he pointed at Drakken.

"Him? _Why_," Shego laughed, looking back at the nonplussed lunatic who took all of a second to recompose himself.

"Isn't it obviously, Shego," Drakken preened with a wide smile. "Mr. Hench has finally recognized the talent I possess, and wished to employ me to build the next generation of doomsday weapons for him!"

"Are you kidding me," Shego sputtered.

Jack glared, pointedly shaking his head at the man's antics.

"No," Drakken asked. "Oh. Well. Then….what did you want me for," he almost whined.

"Because someone has been blowing up my offices and warehouses, and now I'm losing more money than I'm making! I have to wonder if it isn't you, you cheap bastard," Jack swore hotly.

"Me? You think I would blow up….?"

"Do you honestly think he's that competent," Shego sniggered. "The only thing he blows up are his own inventions. I mean, jeez! Haven't you noticed his track record?"

"And yet you stay with him," Jack asked.

"Hey, he actually pays well. And he's really easy to negotiate contracts with," she smirked.

"Indeed. Maybe you were the one…..?"

"What? You think I did it?"

Shego laughed outright.

"C'mon, Hench," she snorted. "If I didn't like you, I'd just barbeque your buns, and say so."

"Trust me, she would," Drakken sighed.

"You, zip it. You," she snapped at Jack. "Me and Doc have been in China all month. Just got back. So, guess what. Wasn't us. Guess you'll have to go find someone else that must really hate you. Or…..maybe can't take the competition."

"Competition," Jack murmured as he watched the odd pair walk out as casually as they had walked into his place.

"Susan," he barked at the intercom. "Get me Marty. Yes, that Marty."

He waited, knowing that bastard was going to make him wait. Just because Smarty-Mart had gone global a full week before him made his know-it-all cousin think he was so much better than him. As if he cared. Still, just last month, Duff had started buying his exploding golfballs in bulk from Smarty-Mart. Before that, even Falsetto Jones was spotted doing his shopping in the Euro-based Smarty-Mart.

Maybe….."

"Martin Smart. How may I help you, Jackie," sounded over the receiver.

"First, don't call me Jackie, you obnoxious seller of cheap knock-offs."

"Nice to hear from you, too, Cuz. So, what's up?"

"My overhead, thanks to a series of alleged accidents that are taking out my factories, warehouses, and primary offices faster than I can blink. Tell me, Marty, are you thinking of covering both sides of the market yourself?"

"Whoa! Are you kidding? Why bother? My new _Super-Smart_ Warehouses are raking it in by the ton. Even in this economy, I can't count it fast enough to bank it. Why would I care about your little corner of the pie?"

"Well someone does," Jack shouted at him.

"Really? Well, I can tell you it isn't me. Maybe someone just doesn't _like_ you, Jackie-boy. You ever think of that?"

Jack frowned as he hung up the phone.

Didn't like him?

But he was Time's Man of the Year. _Twice_.

He was a champion of capitalism.

A member of the PlayBunny Club.

The Billionaire's Club.

Head of the Villains' Consortium.

He even gave to charities. Occasionally.

Plus, he was absurdly rich.

Handsome, charismatic, and very rich. He had tons of admirers.

Who could hate him?

Well, other than his five ex-wives? Or his spoiled step kids? Then there were his competitors he had buried. Some of them literally.

Still, none of those left alive would go so far as to actually attack him.

Would they?

He was musing over the list of potential enemies that might have chosen to assault him when the phone rang again.

"What now," he sighed.

"Sorry, sir. Your Canadian VP just called. An avalanche just buried your Arctic Research & Development Station. Everyone got out, but the place was…..apparently, a complete loss."

Jack groaned.

Was even Mother Nature conspiring against him?

**KP**

Her name was Kim Possible.

The girl who could do anything.

At least that was what her website said.

Okay, it sounded a bit braggy, she had to admit that now. But to a woman who had been raised on the adage that 'anything was possible for a Possible,' she felt she had to live up to the family mantra. And so she did.

She started out babysitting. Rescuing lost or stranded pets. Then a quirk of fate had her saving a millionaire from his own security system, and suddenly she was jetting around the world, facing down super villains and mad scientists as she took on scientific, criminal, or even supernatural threats. She had even helped thwart a genuine alien invasion.

Too bad that wouldn't fit on a résumé.

Too bad that didn't mean anything to the employers who turned her down one after another.

Not that she wasn't qualified.

She was way past qualified with a PhD in quantum physics, and minors in electrical engineering and bio-tech studies.

The problem came in that everyone actually feared to hire her.

She had a reputation by now.

If she wasn't ducking out to handle another mission as an official provisional agent for Global Justice, then she had a parade of madmen, villains, and wannabes crashing into her workplace looking for a little vindication, or the usual facedown.

That kind of thing definitely did not work on a résumé.

So, here she was, Kim Possible. The girl that could do anything.

Except get, or keep a job.

Which was why she was standing outside _Henchco_.

The seat of many of her troubles.

The _Smarty-Mart_ of villainy.

The heart of manpower and resources for almost every poser, villain, and genuine threat in the world.

Glancing up at the moon, she considered what she was about to do. Steeling her gaze, she looked down at the laptop on the hood of her car, and rechecked every blind spot.

"Confirmation, Annie," she asked the AI that ran her robotic miracle car.

"All scans are still negative, Kimberly," the sentient computer told her. "No one is inside."

Kim couldn't help but smile.

"Good. Lock on target. There will be an armory at the first coordinates I tagged. That will make an especially nice secondary blast zone," she said as she closed her computer, shut down the scanners, and climbed into her car after packing away all her gear.

Just to be safe, she had run full scans, then did a personal surveillance in stealth mode, and scanned again. Henchco HQ was empty for the night, just as expected on a Christmas Eve. Jack Hench, was, after all, still a pretty traditional fellow.

He was, however, also the biggest pain in her backside when it came to outfitting and aiming her usual opponents of late.

"Let's see how you like it when someone crashes your party, Jack," she said, and fired up Annie's turbos. "Give us a quarter mile lead," she told the AI. "Then launch all five mini-missiles."

"Missiles away," the AI reported dutifully a few seconds later as they flew away from the primary hub for Henchco operations. And the vanguard for a lot of the stock and resources supplied to villains with the cash and daring to use them.

She gave a faint smirk when the night turned bright red, and even her stabilizers rolled slightly as the shockwave hammered her small vehicle as she flew away.

"Wade," she radioed. "Strike another one off the list."

"Which one, Kim," the man asked, obviously half asleep as he appeared on her monitor in the dash.

"I took down his flagship this time. I got tired of burning down mini-storage warehouses. I figured that a direct slap in his face would send a better message."

"Right. Okay, I've got a hologram buying you an alibi on campus now. You were still in your lab setting up the experiment for your demonstration all night. Can you still be ready for that one in the morning? Or do I need to stall…..?"

"No big. The demo is a simple quantum projector that will strip underlying dimensional walls to let us see into the multiverse. I can have that up and running in...five minutes."

Wade just stared at her.

"Thanks, Wade," she beamed. "You still rock. If you find out where Jack has another major concentration of resources, let me know. I'll hit it next."

"Don't you think he'll be coming after you for this?"

"No chance. I left a few clues that point at Dr. Dementor. Let him chase smoke for a change. I'm tired of waiting around while he sends these freaks after me. I'm being proactive here for a change. Good night, Wade. And thanks."

"Sure, Kim," the young genius who was starting to feel as if he were being left behind of late. Quantum projectors, laser targeted mini-missiles, and tactical strikes? She was stepping up in a majorly scary way to his mind since Ron had left to do the monkey-ninja thing.

Every time she called of late, Wade fully expected to hear her saying she was replacing him.

With herself.

Shutting off the link, he yawned, and went to bed. It was a long night, and his own research wasn't quite as quick and easy as Kim made hers seem since she had turned into a serious scientist in her spare time while still trying to keep the usual riffraff from plaguing the planet.

He just hoped Jack did buy her false trail. He was just clever enough to be a real problem if he managed to figure out the game Kim was playing.

**KP**

"He's only got two major holdings left, Kim," Wade told her just six weeks after Kim began her campaign to shut down Henchco. "A training ground for new Henches in the Rockies. And, of course, his original offices in New York."

"Right," Kim smiled. "So, how do we shut down a training camp for bullies," she mused just a little manically to Wade.

"They operate openly, and legitimately, Kim. Permits, valid training certifications, and all the usual approvals."

"Really. What about the facilities? Don't they require the usual inspections from say…. Health and Safety? That kind of thing?"

"I get you. Just let me work a few contacts, and I'm guessing we can consider the flow of henches seriously curtailed for the foreseeable future."

"Thanks, Wade. I'll get to work on his New York offices myself."

"No explosions, Kim," he almost shouted. "He's right in the heart of the city's financial district!"

"Wade," she actually pouted. "Give me some credit."

"Sorry. It's just….. You've gotten rather fond of those mini-missiles lately."

"They do make a spankin' avalanche, don't they," she grinned, and signed off.

Wade only groaned.

"Maybe GJ will still hire me as a consultant," he wondered as he considered the legal ramifications of what his long-time friend and personal hero was doing of late.

**KP**

"Come in," Betty Director, head of Global Justice snapped as Will Du glanced at the door.

"You wanted to see me, Dr. Director," Kim asked as she walked into the room, dropped into a chair, and just glared at Will who stood ramrod straight at the side of the woman's desk.

"Yes, I did."

"We know what you've been up to lately," Will told her.

"Really?"

"Destruction of public and private property. Malicious mischief. Fraudulent official reports, harassment. Unauthorized detonation of unlicensed explosives. You even….."

"Will, stand down," the one-eyed head of the agency snapped. "Kimberly, we do know about Henchco. In six weeks, you took a genuinely thriving international business concern, and turned it into a struggling entity that isn't likely to recover for over nine years according to my experts."

"Really? Too bad," she murmured.

"You cannot…."

"Will," Betty snapped. "Go get some coffee. I'll handle this matter."

Will glared at Kim all the more, but nodded to his superior, and left the room.

"Still got that stick firmly up his…..backside, doesn't he?"

"I sometimes rue the day my aunt talked me into hiring him," she admitted. "Now, as for you. You undermined a major arms dealer in munitions, bio-tech, and radical new weaponry inside of a month. You crippled their operations, drained their operating budgets, and managed to turn Jack's flagship into a dinghy. All without ever being found out."

"I wouldn't say that. You figured it out."

"Only because Wade called me to sound out the _legal issues_ of your recent actions."

"I see," she murmured, looking and sounding less than pleased. "And what did you tell him?"

"That you were operating under my direct authority, and at my express command. I also suggested that he was to keep his mouth shut, and never even think about repeating anything you had said or done under that authorization."

"Nice," she smiled. "He's been getting a bit antsy the older he's gotten after some of his hacker buddies got busted for trying to close down the nation's nuclear arsenals."

"Too heavy-handed. I doubt you would have made that kind of mistake if you were doing it. Would you?"

"Well, duh," Kim grinned, and gave a faint laugh. "So, Dr. Director. What _is_ the official policy for provisional agents shutting down allegedly legitimate international arms dealers?"

"The usual in-house commendations, and a promotion. You're now a senior commander, and a fully deputized field agent with Global Justice. I'm also giving you complete authorization for any and all future operations. Whatever they might be," Betty remarked blandly. "Because that kind of thinking, Kimberly, is exactly what we need to keep up with the world around us. You keep up the good work, and you really will be the one that takes over my chair when it's time."

"I'm just glad to be of help," she smiled as she rose to her feet. "So, Will won't be a problem?"

"Will Wade?"

"I've got something else in mind to keep him occupied. Maybe he won't worry so much this time," she grinned.

"Good. I'll handle Agent Du. Now, it might interest you to know that Dr. Drakken was recently sighted back in China again. He's obviously up to something out there."

"I'm on my way," Kim assured her.

"Good luck, Agent Possible," Betty nodded curtly as she left.

Kim's careless wave said much about her of late.

"Go get them," Betty murmured, knowing that things were going to heat up before they cooled. But for once, she was on the winning side. She had an agent smart, tough, and flexible enough to think on her feet. She could also do what needed done without worrying about regulations or guidelines. Just as she had hoped when she first mentored the young heroine after first meeting her.

She suspected not without reason that Jack Hench was only going to be the first to lament their change in fortune in the upcoming future.

And she couldn't help but smile herself at the thought that none of them would likely even see it coming.


End file.
